


On Relativity and the Behavior of Black Holes

by thesewordselope (jadebloods)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-04-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadebloods/pseuds/thesewordselope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None of it happened the way it was supposed to. But, in their defense, there was no way anyone could have expected it. (AU fic, diverges from canon around book 5 or 6)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Relativity and the Behavior of Black Holes

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on the now debunked Knight2King theory, which suggested that Ron Weasley and Albus Dumbledore were the same person. Alternate universe that diverges from canon around book 5 or 6. Originally posted to my livejournal on August 25, 2004.

"It was a plague nobody expected, puberty again, instead of death, cracking voices and new bodies we can't understand." - A Softer World

 

None of it happened the way it was supposed to. But, in their defense, there was no way anyone could have expected it.

It started when Harry killed Voldemort. No, that's a lie. It ended when Harry killed Voldemort, when Voldemort killed Harry, on June 15th in the Year of Our Lord 1997. When it started isn't as easy to say. It could have been March 1st 1980. It could have been June 15th 1850. But it did start and it does end and sometimes that's the worst part, when he thinks about it. 

  

It was raining. That's what he remembers the most. It had rained for days leading up to it, and Draco had to wipe his soggy hair out of his eyes when he muttered that there were things at work more powerful than any of them could imagine. Draco had been practically creaming his pants with glee, Ron remembered that too. In retrospect, he didn't feel any hatred for any of them. They couldn't have known. And if they had, then they were too insane to deserve being hated. 

Hermione spent that last week in the library. It had struck him as a very Hermione thing to do, as if looking up hexes in an old Charms textbook could decide the fate of their kind. As usual, she hadn't been that far off the mark after all. She had a plate of toast next to her on the morning three days prior, munching on them as she read about spells to instantaneously boil the fluids in another person's body, getting crumbs all over the book and her robes. Ron asked her why she bothered putting the books back away in such precise order since the world was going to end anyway, but she smiled and said that the world wasn't really going to end until the Sun imploded. And even then, who knows? The Earth would get sucked into the black hole that formed where the Sun had been, and nobody knew what was on the other side of a black hole. They might simply turn inside-out and wind up in a backwards universe. They might come face to face with themselves. Maybe there was nothing. It was an encouraging thought. 

Black holes were on his mind a lot. Hermione tried to explain them to him, because some muggle physicist said that if a theory couldn't be explained to a child, then it was worthless. He still didn't understand them, and spent the last week of his life as Ron wondering if he wasn't dumber than a child. He had been wondering this while Hermione tongued the spot where his lip had split and was swelling, like contents under pressure. Black holes, he thought, as blood pounded in his ears and he found that place in Hermione where he'd crawl into her like a wounded animal and die there, if only for a moment. Black holes, he thought, as Hermione bit down and he tasted fresh blood in his mouth. He didn't understand them, but he thought they might not be the worst thing that could happen to the world. 

  

The final battle had been anticlimactic, at least for him. He didn't know what he had expected, but it wasn't the end of the world. There were no earth-shattering explosions, no flashes of bright light. Death, yes, but quiet death. They weren't even supposed to be there. Not technically, anyway, although everyone knew Harry had to be the one to do it, and nobody expected him to show up alone. Snape had been giving Harry secret lessons in the Unforgivables for most of their seventh year, and Ron had hated him for it. Ron didn't know if he hated Snape for the stress he was putting Harry through or because he refused to give Ron and Hermione lessons as well. 

Black holes, he thought absently when Harry and Voldemort died. He, George, and Kingsley Shacklebolt had been the only ones who had managed to dodge the stunning spells that erupted from the remaining Death Eaters as they fled from their fallen master. Ron only had a moment to wonder why they were running away when the sky collapsed and he felt himself being pulled inside-out. 

  

It was impossible to tell how long they were out, but the three of them had awoken in the middle of the grounds at high noon. The field was clean and clear of blood and signs of struggle. Kingsley told Ron and George to stay put as he ran into the school to talk to the survivors. George asked why, if anyone had survived, they would have left them lying in the middle of the field. They followed him into the castle and a stern-faced witch met them in the entrance hall. 

"I need to speak to the Headmaster," Kingsley said to her, "it is an emergency." 

The witch frowned, "If you mean the Headmistress, I'd be more than happy to help you." 

"Headmis-- where is Dumbledore?" 

"I don't know anyone by that name," she looked at them suspiciously. "Where do you come from? What is your business here?" 

  

It took him a very long time to realize that he wasn't Ron anymore. After twenty years had passed and research had shown that no wizards by the name of Dumbledore even existed, it was a freak accident that caused him to realize what he had to do. It was quite hard for a wizard approaching middle-age who had no proof of his own existence to find work, at least until he met a man named Nicholas Flamel. 

"Alchemy has been outlawed by the monarchy, you know," Flamel told him when they met. "The church sees it as dangerous. Blasphemous. But we know there is no such thing as God. There is only magic and physics. And sometimes there is not even that." 

Ron shook his head. "Maybe that's what God is. Magic and physics." 

"If there is a God, he exists in alchemy. How old do you think I am?" Flamel grinned, daring the nameless young wizard across the table to guess correctly. 

"Seventy?" 

"I'm almost four hundred years old. I found it, the stone." Flamel leaned over the table in anticipation, a mad light in his eyes. "But it is not enough. I need an apprentice, and you seem well-qualified. What is your name?" 

"Albus Dumbledore," said Ron, without a second thought. 

  

The rest turned out to be surprisingly easy. After his association with Flamel had made him famous within the wizarding community, he was offered a job as professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. George moved to Hogsmeade to be near him, opening the Hogs Head Inn under an assumed name. Ron had to exercise a significant amount of restraint not to murder Tom Riddle the day he arrived at Hogwarts. Hermione had once explained the theory behind time travel to Ron, and it was her voice that stilled his hand, even though she wasn't to be born for over forty years. 

He thought that seeing has family for the first time would be the worst thing, seeing them and not being able to tell them who he was. He saw his parents go to Hogwarts and watched them court. He started counting the years before he'd get to see Bill as a first year when an odd thought occurred to him. He was going to be born soon. Ronald Weasley was going to be born, and then there would be two of him. And then he stood corrected. Enduring his birthday without being able to be there or to celebrate it was the worst day of his life. Of both of his lives. 

Then Harry was born, and Ron was able to see him for the first time. He was at James and Lily's wedding, in the very back of the chapel, and later they invited him to see little Harry at St. Mungos shortly after he was born. At this point they had known of the Prophecy, and everyone in the Order was concerned for baby Harry. Again Ron felt the urge to fuck the consequences and save the lives of James and Lily, to give Harry the childhood he deserved. 

That September, Hermione was born in a muggle hospital, and Ron spent her birthday in his office, remembering the smell of book dust in her hair. 

  

McGonagall barged into the Headmaster's office without knocking, as she was wont to do in times of stress. "They'll be here this time tomorrow," she said, in a tense little voice that was very unbecoming to her. 

He nodded thoughtfully, serenely. "What about Harry? Is he where we need him to be?" 

"He has progressed as far as we could have possibly hoped." She fixed him with a scrutinizing look not unlike that of the witch who had been Headmistress a little less than hundred and fifty years ago. "Are you sure that you're doing the right thing, Albus? Maybe he doesn't have to be there. We can only expect so much of him, you know." 

He turned away from McGonagall to look out the window and down onto the grounds. The summer sun shone brightly off the Great Lake, which rippled in a calm breeze. "Minerva, this is the task that Harry was made to do. I realize this now more than ever. There would be no other way. Harry wouldn't let there be another way. There's no wizard alive who could change the course of events now. You know that." 

"Yes. Yes, I suppose I do. I just wish it didn't have to be like this." She left quietly. 

When she had gone, he looked at his pocket watch. At that very moment, somewhere above him in Gryffindor tower, Hermione was comforting him in the best way she knew how. He licked his lips and almost imagined that he tasted blood. Soon, one way or another, he'd be a whole person again instead of two. He only hoped that, when the time came, he'd be able to finally tell the truth about who he was. When it had happened, Hermione had been unconscious. He-- Dumbledore-- had been unconscious. The only ones awake were he-- Ron--, George, and Kingsley, and they had been the only ones sucked back in time. He had no idea what would happen to everyone who had been unconscious, but he hoped that they would survive. He hoped he would live to be able to tell Hermione what really happened when someone was pulled through a black hole.


End file.
